A New Eco-Feminsim?
Last year, a group of interdisciplinary faculty met in Women's Studies to discuss the politics of food production. We called ourselves E2T (Earth to Table). Inspired in part by Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, we had many excellent conversations about the issues behind monoculture, agribusiness, organics, confined animal operations, slaughter, local farming, and more. This year, Women's Studies has decided to both expand and contract that conversation. We want to expand it by including a wider range of topics related to earth and animals (that is, not just food), and contract it by locating feminist discourse at the center of our agenda.

As many may know, a discourse emerged in the mid-1970's that aimed to investigate the connection between feminism and earth and animals. These women called themselves Eco-Feminists and generated many ideas about the nature of women, the plight of animals, and the need for conservation. Due to a whole host of theoretical and practical conflicts, this project was never seriously embraced by academic feminists. Duke Women's Studies New Eco-feminism project hopes to revisit these questions, and develop theories and methodologies that will resonate within academic feminism today. We learned from E2T that there is a great need for further study of conservation, land use, and animal advocacy, not just from the perspective of science but from the humanities and interpretive sciences as well. We believe that contemporary feminist theory has much to offer such an engagement. Despite the fact that our eco-feminist foremothers may have been entrenched in essentialist ideology in their formulations, we believe their questions were the right ones. What can feminist thinking offer in response to the many global crises we face today including massive development, deforestation, animal torture, extinction, habitat loss, pollution, and global warming? A lot, we think. Won't you join us in forging a new approach to earth and animals and an updated agenda for a New Eco-feminism?

For more information contact Kathy Rudy (krudy@duke.edu ) or Ranjana Khanna (rkhanna@duke.edu ).

Please refer to the Women's Studies Calendar for events.

RESOURCES

The Organic and Non-GMO Report (pdf) - Information to help you capitalize on markets for organic and non-genetically modified products.

Films on Monoculture:

• Future of Food
• Ripe for Change
• Troublesome Creek
• My Father's Garden
• Country
• The Corporation (not exclusively about Food but worth watching)

Films on Fast Food Industry:

• Supersize Me
• Fast Food Nation

Films on Farm Animal Welfare:

• Earthlings (not exclusively about Food but worth watching)
• Peaceable Kingdom
• Animals

Films on Food:

• Babette's Feast
• Eat Drink Man Woman
• Chocolat

Recommended Reading

• Michael Pollan The Omnivore's Dilemma
• Peter Singer/Jim Mason The Way We Eat
• Mathew Scully Dominion
• Leon Kass The Hungry Soul
• Richard Ellis The Empty Ocean
• Brian Halwell Eat Here
• Wendell Berry The Unsettling of America
• Erik Marcus Meat Market
• Michele Simon Appetite for Profit

Useful Websites

Ecofeminist Resources